A New Time

This is not about food. Not the kind that mothers and fathers are putting on their dining room table tonight, anyway.

I let most of today wash over me. It was a time for others to speak. For others' words to ring out.

But I choked up tonight when I had time to listen to my messages.

Four years ago, a broken and battered campaigner woke in a hotel room in Detroit the day after an election and heard his mother's voice in a message say: "I just wanted to call and let you know the sun came up today."

It was everything any son could have wanted to hear. It made me smile again and know that I could smile again.

It was more comfort than any meal before or since.

And now, four years later, another message came through and spoke of Aaron Copeland's "Simple Gifts," of being moved by Aretha Franklin, and of the notion that today was a day 'of my time.'

It was a mother's knowledge of what I had done, what it meant to me, and what would root it always in my mind as something that 'we' had done.

Here is the rendition from today:



Here is how I heard it played as a young boy growing up before campaigns, before it was a job, and when these notes meant hope for a new season of football on a hot August afternoon.

They mean something more now.



Thanks Mom, I could have have never done any of this without you.